Heartbeats
by Kodiak Sage
Summary: When Shepard finds herself pregnant with Kaidan's child, she has some important but difficult decisions to make. How can she be expected to be a mother and the leader that the galaxy needs to defeat the Reapers? Luckily her friends are there to help and support her.
1. Prologue

Hearbeats

By Kodiak Sage

Note: This is written for a prompt on the Mass Effect Kinkmeme on LJ, part XVI, p. 12. Also, some of the tech I use in this story is inspired by the sci-fi novel Cordelia's Honor by Lois McMaster Bujold and makes sense with Mass Effect's level of technological advancement. Rating is for sexual themes.

* * *

_Prologue_

Shepard loved the feeling of Kaidan's skin under her hands, the wiry hairs over his chest, the feel of his military buzz on the back of his neck, the smell of his aftershave. She trailed her lips over his neck and clenched her legs around his waist as he pumped his hips against her over and over. She gasped and tilted her hips back to feel the friction of him against her core, almost…almost…a ragged shout announced her orgasm, followed by Kaidan's shivering release. He ground out her name and slowed his movements, turning instead to kiss her softly on the lips.

Kaidan rolled off and cuddled up, her head on his shoulder. When Shepard laid her hand over his chest, she could feel his heart beating, steady, alive, real. There was always a passion and urgency with Kaidan that Shepard had never had with any other lover. The little moments seemed to last forever while they were happening, and stick in her mind for days afterwards. She could feel aroused just thinking about the way he looked at her when he wanted sex. Those bottomless brown eyes full of love and passion could draw her in and drown her if she looked too long.

This moment was especially poignant; it was the last time they would see each other for a while. Shepard was due to report to Earth for her Court Martial the following day, after almost a month on the Citadel reporting on her attack on the collector base and saying goodbye to her surviving squadmates who were going their separate ways. But while she was saying goodbye to Tali and Mordin and the others, she was also making amends with Kaidan_. "Funny how it takes surviving a suicide mission and saving the galaxy to impress you these days."_ Shepard had said when she first saw him. He'd responded by taking her into his arms and kissing her passionately, much to the chagrin of the innocent onlookers in the presidium.

From there they had made their way to her cabin on the Normandy, and made all night and most of the next day, making up for lost time, past and future.


	2. Chapter 1

_Four Months Later_

Tuchenka was a bitch. Shepard tenderly removed her body armor, letting both med-igel and blood drip onto the shiny floor of the med bay. She indulged herself in a groan of pain and handed the armor off to a waiting private to clean and service. Genophage, Reapers, Krogans, and huge-ass thresher maws were not ordinary fare, even for an N7. She wasn't the only one injured either—Garrus was limping heavily and even Liara wasn't unscathed. And Mordin…Shepard couldn't think about Mordin right now. It never got easier, losing friends, no matter how many times it happened.

A worried Alliance private hovered nearby to take the armor away for cleaning and servicing, and Dr. Michel hovered even nearer trying to see what the damage was. Beyond her, two Alliance medical techs also hovered, waiting for instructions.

"Take care of my squad first." Shepard said tetchily. She winced as the fabric of her under suit pulled away from her body with the armor, taking a large chuck of blood and meat with it. "Ugh."

"Commander, you are the most injured. I must look at this wound in your side." Dr. Michel insisted firmly.

Shepard bent down and unclasped her greaves and boots, the last pieces before her eager helper could whisk away the armor. She was down to her socks and underclothes, and finally allowed herself to sit on one of the examining tables. A tech polarized the windows for privacy and another helped sat Garrus down to look at his injured leg.

Dr. Michel waved the scanner over the reluctant commander and pressed her fingers into the meat under her ribs. A worried frown came over her face, her eyes were glued to the readouts flashing by on her omni-tool.

"You can fix me, can't you Doctor?" Shepard joked. Dr. Michel didn't smile back, but continued her examination, this time pressing her hands into the front of Shepard's stomach. She looked from her readings to Shepard's eyes and then back, and the look she wore was so serious that Shepard was momentarily frightened.

"What's wrong, Doctor?" Shepard asked sharply.

"I don't…" She looked to Liara and Garrus and the techs. "I must speak with you privately. And we must get you a blood transfusion immediately." She directed the techs to hook up a machine and get an IV started on Shepard, who was forced to lay flat on the examining table.

"Leave us please. I am sorry Garrus, Liara, but you will have to wait outside for a few minutes while I talk with the Commander. Vasquez, Gunther, please gather some equipment and pain meds and continue to triage our other patients out there." Her voice was steady and commanding, here in her kingdom, and the techs obeyed her orders as if she was an admiral. Shepard's squad mates were taken aback but concerned, and asked no questions. As soon as Shepard was hooked up to a pint of blood, everyone bustled out of the med bay, leaving Shepard alone with the doctor.

"What is this, Doctor?" Shepard asked. "Why all the secrecy? Did the shrapnel hit a vital organ or something?"

"Shepard, when was your last contraceptive shot?"

This line of questioning took Shepard like a right hook from a hanar. "What? I guess…I don't think I had one since before Chakwas was taken by the collectors. Probably a year ago." A horrible, horrible thought began to bubble to the surface of Shepard's mind.

"And your last sexual encounter?"

"Kaidan. On the citadel, before I went to Earth for my court martial. He'd just made Spectre. How is that any of your business?" The horrible thought had snowballed into a terrible, terrible fear. These questions could only possibly lead to one place, and she didn't like it at all. She looked up at Dr. Michel. "This isn't funny."

"Shepard, you are nineteen weeks pregnant."

Shepard closed her eyes. "That's fucking impossible." Her mind felt blank and white, unable to think at all, because if she thought at all she'd have to think about—.

Dr. Michel pulled up a holo on her omni-tool and held it for Shepard to see. It looked like a jumbled mess at first, but after a few manipulations, Shepard could see a head, a body, two little arms and two little legs. The head turned, and she saw a tiny profile—nose, mouth, chin. Her heart almost stopped. "This is impossible," She said, but it was weak. Nineteen weeks ago, she had sex with Kaidan without a contraceptive shot. She was fucking pregnant. Thirty-two years old, an Alliance Commander and a Spectre, leading the galaxy in a war against the worse threat they had ever faced, and she was carrying a baby. Fuck.

"Why don't I look—fat or whatever." Shepard was grasping at mirages, trying to figure a way out of this. "How could I not know?"

"You are in very good physical condition, so your abdominal muscles are tighter and harder to stretch out. They are also not weakened out by any previous pregnancy, so you do not 'show'. And nineteen weeks is not very far along. The baby is only the size of a potato right now."

Shepard sat up, the IV pinching her arm. The blankness was starting to fade, only to be replaced by a dreamlike unreality. How could this possibly happen? She couldn't have a baby. She hadn't planned for this at all, which was in itself almost unheard of since contraceptive shots were given by default to all active-duty Alliance service members. But last year, Shepard hadn't been an Alliance service member. She had been on Cerberus payroll, and doctorless for months after the collectors took her crew.

"What do I do? Can you…what are my options?"

Dr. Michel looked flustered. She gently urged the Commander to lay back on the table so that she could start repairing the gaping wound in Shepard's side. She gently began dabbing the area with ointments and coagulants. "Unplanned pregnancies are very rare, but the usual practice, if the mother is unable to or does not wish to continue carrying the child, is to transfer the child to a grow-tank and then put up for adoption. On some worlds, killing the child is also acceptable, though not in any of the System Alliance worlds."

"Don't call me a mother," Shepard said sharply. She felt lightheaded, as if her whole world was upside down, but she was expected to walk away "I'm not going to be a mother. Get me a damned grow-tank right now and get it done with."

"I'm sorry Commander, I don't have the necessary equipment, nor the surgical skills required. You'll have to go somewhere else. Any well equipped hospital should have what you need." Dr. Michel's face was visibly pained. She used a small instrument to seal up the skin over the wound, and then set to work on applying a bandage.

"Like the citadel?"

The doctor hesitated before meeting Shepard's eyes. "I can…send you a list of hospitals. You need to think about this Shepard. You must not jump into any decisions. I think that you should…alert the father. He might have an opinion on where you should place the child. Perhaps he has family who could take charge until the war is over."

Shepard wanted to get up and pace, but she was tethered to the exam table by her IV, which was slowly pumping replacement blood into her. Dr. Michel had resumed examining and repairing other more minor wounds. Kaidan. She was carrying Kaidan's baby, and had been for four months. She'd carried this baby down to Mars, Menae, Sur'Kesh, and Tuchenka. She'd been in firefights and explosions, and drank to her heart's content on several occasions. She'd dodged a Reaper and a Thresher Maw, all with a tiny innocent little piece of luggage inside her.

"How did I not know?" Shepard said. Her voice was ragged with emotion and sudden guilt. "Is the kid okay? I mean…with everything I've been through these last few months." Shepard covered her eyes with her hands, remembering every glass of wine, every booming explosion and concussive grenade she'd been near in the past months. Just because she hadn't wanted a baby didn't mean that she actively wanted to hurt a baby— but had she?

"According to my scans, the heartbeat is strong, and the brain activity looked normal. Your shields and armor probably did a lot to protect the child from any lasting damage, though the further into the pregnancy you get, the more impact something like that would have on fetal development."

"I'm not going any further. I'm going to get a damn grow-tank as soon as possible." Shepard growled.

"What about the father, Kaidan?" Dr. Michel asked gently.

"He can't know." Shepard responded instantly. She knew it was the right decision, but she couldn't exactly explain why. She just couldn't bring herself to get him involved in this right now.

"Would you like to know the gender of the child, Commander?" Dr. Michel stood back, stripping off her gloves. She was done patching Shepard up for the time being.

"No." Shepard rolled away from Dr. Michel and closed her eyes, signaling that the conversation as over. The Doctor pulled a blanket up over her, then ushered her other patients and techs back in and picked up on bandaging Garrus' leg. Liara looked worriedly at Shepard's blank face, but didn't ask what was wrong. Not that Shepard would have told anyone if they did ask. This was none of the Shadow Broker's business. It was just a little blip, a problem that she needed to take care of.

#

"Mindoir?" Joker mused from the pilot's seat. Shepard stood behind him, one arm hooked across the back of the chair. "What the hell is on Mindoir besides a lame-ass colony? I think Mindoir is actually the one colony in the galaxy that's more boring than Tiptree."

"I grew up on Mindoir," Shepard said, raising an eyebrow. "What are you implying Joker?"

"Nothing Shepard. So what, are we going to get to meet the rest of the Shepard clan or something?"

Shepard gave EDI a warning look, which the AI correctly interpreted as 'Don't say anything about my past to this buffoon right now.' Out loud, Shepard said, "No. Just take us in. I put the coordinates on the galaxy map."

"Understood Commander." For all his joking, Joker took his job on the Normandy seriously.

Shepard's next stop was the main battery, where she knew she would find Garrus lurking about, perpetually trying to increase the efficiency of the Thanix cannon.

"Shepard," He looked up and acknowledged her. "You need something?"

"Yeah. A favor."

"Anything, Commander,"

Shepard hesitated. Dr. Michell already knew about the baby, but she wasn't quite the close friend that she needed right now. Shepard wanted to tell Liara but she was afraid that the asari would try and persuade her to tell Kaidan. Chakwas would have been preferable but…Shepard pushed the thought out of her mind. What happened was in the past. She needed to get this out of the way so that she could look to the future.

"It's a personal mission. I have to go down and visit a med clinic and I need…backup. I want you to suit up, but I'm not actually expecting any trouble. I want you to pilot the shuttle, keep any nosy reporters away, and ah…anything else that comes up."

"Are you alright?" Garrus asked. She had his full attention now, the Thanix cannon in the background was suddenly just a piece of tech. She knew he was imagining all kinds of strange diseases, dying relatives, and covert intel-missions.

Shepard struggled with what to say. Embarrassment battled with honesty for a moment, but then she swallowed her pride and told him the truth.

"I'm pregnant. Alenko knocked me up a while back, before I went to Earth."

Garrus looked as surprised as if she'd suddenly told him she was going to get a sex change and marry a salarian. He rubbed the back his neck and stammered, his mandibles flexing wordlessly.

"I'm putting the baby up for adoption on Mindoir. It's the colony where I grew up."

"I…understand Commander." Garrus was finally coming back around to himself, Shepard could see.

"Alenko doesn't know. He's…sentimental. He'd want to keep it, or send it to his family on Earth. You know why neither of those is an option for me."

"The war and…the war. I get it."

Shepard paced back and forth across in front of the control panel, her thoughts and rationalizations bubbling out of her mouth before she could stop herself. "Earth is under attack—there's no way that the kid would be safe there. And with me or Kaidan—we're on the front lines. I've put the damn kid in enough danger as it is with my drinking and fighting and blowing shit up—and I'm not likely to stop any time soon. Even if it were a grow tank here on the ship…I can't go out on missions thinking about some innocent kid up on the Normandy waiting for me. You know Garrus, if it comes down to it, I will throw myself into the fire if it means ending the reapers once and for all."

Garrus shook his head and let his breath out slowly. "It better not come to that Shepard."

She paused in her pacing. "There's one more thing. After this…is all over. If I don't make it out I want you to tell Kaidan. And if he doesn't make it out…I just want you to keep an eye on things. If it looks like the situation is going south on Mindoir, you have my authorization for extraction and relocation."

Shepard locked her gaze on Garrus' sharp sapphire eyes. He nodded slowly. "You have my word Commander." That was enough for Shepard. It had to be, because it was the best she could damn well do.


	3. Chapter 2

The last time Shepard had seen Mindoir it had been a smoking ruin shrinking away out the window of an Alliance rescue-shuttle. It had been rebuilt and repopulated in the sixteen years since that day, but it looked nothing like she remembered. The buildings were mostly prefabs shipped in my some company or another and scattered over a hundred kilometers for farming, but they weren't painted the bright and cheerful colors of Mindoir past. The 'city' central consisted of four large low sprawling buildings including the school, hospital, military base, and government building, with a spiral of smaller prefabs and constructions radiating out from there for several kilometers. Shepard mused that Joker might have been right—this could very well be the most boring colony in the galaxy.

The shuttle veered towards the very small landing strip behind the Alliance outpost and Garrus took them down gently. Cortez had been slightly put out when he'd learned that Shepard was benching him, but recovered when she explained that if it was anything more than a casual jaunt to visit a dying relative, she wouldn't have anyone else take her in. Shepard was in civilian gear, unmarked, with her dark hair bundled up under a hat. No one remained of her old life who might recognize her, but she didn't want to go strutting around advertising that the famous Commander Shepard was here. For better or for worse, she wished to be as anonymous as possible.

Which was why, when she and Garrus rounded the corner and saw a twenty-five-foot tall bronze statue in the square between the four main buildings, she stopped in her tracks and stared in horror. It was her own likeness, looking skyward and pensive and heroic above her. There was no mistaking it to be anyone other than her—the N7 armor and signature Avenger rifle aside, the words "COMMANDER SHEPARD, SAVIOR OF THE CITADEL AND THE GALAXY" standing two feet tall at the statue's feet were sure to clarify.

Garrus chuckled. "Impressive, Shepard. As far as I know there aren't any statues of me back in my hometown on Palaven."

"God, this is bad. How am I supposed to get in and out of here without the whole galaxy finding out what I'm up to?" She felt panic rising in her gut. "Someone is going to recognize me. And if they don't recognize me, they'll see my name and they'll know.

"Relax commander. We do it all the time with hostiles. Surely we can manage with a few civvies. If you have to, you can give them my name. You could even try to convince them that I'm the father."

Shepard smiled at that thought of trying to get some poor tech to believe that she was the first human ever to conceive a half-turian half-human child. She was glad that she'd brought Garrus along. Only he could be so irreverent in this situation. It was just what she needed.

She tucked her hat down to shade her eyes and stomped hurriedly past the monstrous statue, refusing to look at it for another second. She'd heard that something like this had happened, but seeing it in person was…something else. She and Garrus strode purposefully up the steps to the hospital, which she noticed with a start was named after the woman who had been governor of the colony when it was attacked in 2170. The woman had spoken at her school once.

They approached the front desk, where Shepard, unsure of herself for once, put her hands on the counter and looked at the woman behind it in the eyes. Shepard had an intensity about her that was off-putting, and the girl was obviously discomfited. Garrus, taking up a menacing body-guard-esque pose nearby didn't help. Hell, the woman at the desk had probably never even seen a turian in person before.

"Can I help you?" The woman squeaked. Shepard nodded.

"I need…what do you call it…I need to have a baby taken out and put in a grow tank, and then put up for adoption here on Mindoir. It's urgent."

"Um…" The woman took a peek at Garrus and then pressed a button. "He can't have guns in here."

"He's with me, and I'm Alliance. Is there anyone I can talk to…a doctor or someone who can do this?"

"Ah…" the woman looked Shepard up and down. "Can I have your name?"

"No."

The woman pressed another button hesitantly and called for some doctor or other to come down. She motioned Shepard off to a waiting room nearby, where several parents with sick kids were waiting. Most of them were outright staring at Garrus. Shepard didn't blame them. He was the most interesting thing in the whole building, probably.

Shepard sat slumped in a chair next to her officer and tried to keep her face down, except for a few peeks at the kids. One of them was moving towards them one chair at a time, with many furtive glances at his mother nearby. She was intently reading from a datapad and not paying him much attention. Within minutes he was only two chairs over from Shepard and Garrus. "Are you a Spectre?" he asked Garrus in an awed voice.

Garrus chuckled. "No. But I've met several Spectres before."

The boys' eyes bugged out. "Have you been to the citadel?"

"I worked for C-Sec on the citadel for many years. But I grew up on Palaven."

"You're the coolest alien I've ever met!" the boy said. "I want to go to the citadel when I grow up. Maybe I can work for C-sec!"

"It's a tough job. But you look like a tough kid."

"Tony!" The boy looked guiltily around at his mother, who had finally noticed that he was gone. He scurried back over to her and dove into his original chair. She whispered something to him and handed him a datapad. He started reading it, but kept sending furtive smiles at Garrus.

"They'll be building a statue of you here next," Shepard muttered at him, but he just laughed.

They waited for about an hour, the people in the waiting room gradually being led off by techs and nurses and disappearing down different hallways until Garrus and Shepard were the only ones left in the waiting room. Finally, a self-important doctor strode in. The woman at the front desk pointed to Shepard and Garrus, and the doctor approached them. He was middle-aged and graying, with a neat moustache and a long pointed nose. He didn't look happy to be dealing with this situation.

"Now who are you?" he demanded, looking from Garrus to Shepard and back again. Shepard stood and crossed her arms over her chest, sizing him up as if he was an armed hostile. She decided he was about as potent as a paralyzed husk.

"I prefer to remain anonymous. I'll talk to whoever is in charge here."

The doctor blustered, "If you want to use our services and facilities, you'd do best to cooperate with us. Your information is required before we even begin processing, and if you don't leave your guns at the door, you won't be admitted at all!"

Shepard traded a look with Garrus, but he just shrugged. She knew that this was her call. Shepard gave the doctor a dirty look and approached the receptionist again.

"I need to talk to whoever is in charge here. The hospital director, the chief surgeon…someone important."

Shepard opened her palm and showed the girl one of her N7 pins, and then took a significant glance towards the exit, where the statue of Shepard was standing in the sunshine. Understanding bloomed across the woman's face, which flushed pink.

"Oh! Oh of course!" She pressed a series of buttons on the intercom.

"Go right on up. Dr. Walker, the Director, is in his office." She pointed down the hall to the elevator. "Twelfth floor, last door on the right!"

"Here now!" The sharp-nosed doctor bustled about behind them, but Shepard and Garrus both ignored him. The receptionist stood up to intercept and distract him.

"Thank God for fans," Shepard muttered as the elevator doors closed behind them. Garrus chuckled and they rode up to the top of the building. Shepard could feel herself getting more and more tense as she went through with this. She kept thinking through her options, wondering if she was doing the right thing—but each time, this came down to being her only option, therefore it had to be the right thing. Right?

Dr. Walker's office was the only room on that floor besides meeting rooms, and easy to find. The door opened for them, presumably the receptionists' doing, and Dr. Walker was waiting for them.

"Commander Shepard I assume," Dr. Walker greeted her warmly. "I thought as much when I heard that the Normandy was in orbit. Welcome back to Mindoir." He was short and stooped, with white puffs of hair and deep set eyes. He looked like he could be someone's great grandfather.

"Thank you sir." Shepard said. She shook his hand firmly. "I hope that you'll be able to help me. And I hope that you can be discreet about my identity as well."

"We can, and we will. Other than myself, no one else needs know your or the child's identity. Please sit and we can discuss this." He seemed genuine, but Shepard wanted to be sure. She motioned Garrus forward and put her hands on the edge of his desk as the elderly doctor settled himself behind it.

"If this gets out, I can't promise that I won't retaliate. The galaxy needs me, and I need peace of mind to do my job. _No one_ can know."

"I understand you perfectly, Commander," Dr. Walker answered with a wry smile, "But you have nothing to fear. Mindoir wouldn't be half as populous if it weren't for our fame as your birthplace. Besides that, we were all afraid of the Collectors, and you were the one who did something about it. We could have been the next hit after Horizon if not for you."

Shepard settled into the chair and took off her hat. She hated having to use her reputation to get a point across, but this was something with which she could take no chances. Garrus stood back by the door.. Shepard appreciated his menacing figure behind her. She didn't feel very menacing herself at the moment.

"I'm sure you can imagine why I'm doing what I'm doing, and why I chose Mindoir."

"I imagine the first has something to do with your line of work, and the second with the fact that we are a quiet, peaceful settlement." Dr. Walker said.

"Yes. Can you do the procedure? Do you think there is a family here that would take her i?"

"Yes to both, Commander. We are now up to almost 100,000 settlers, many of whom have applied to accept underage war refugees for foster and adoption, and this hospital handles both in-vitro gestations and neonatal care. I can personally oversee this particular case, if you wish."

"That would be preferable, thank you. Can you do it today? I have a war to fight."

"Tomorrow is the earliest the lab can be ready to accept the fetus. We'll need to keep you here and monitor you overnight as well. It's a very delicate procedure and only one of our doctors on staff is trained to do it."

"Tomorrow then," Shepard reluctantly agreed. "Garrus, I'll need you to go back to the Normandy. Take Joker out on some seek and find missions in nearby systems. Resources, artifacts, you know the drill."

"I can't leave you here Shepard." Garrus said. Shepard recognized his tone of voice as unfailingly obstinate. One of the things she loved most about Garrus was his loyalty, but the other side of that coin was this insatiable sense of honor. She knew that in his code, leaving a pregnant friend in a hospital overnight before a delicate, invasive medical procedure was not only dishonorable, but absolutely despicable.

Shepard gritted her teeth. "Suggestions, Vakarian?"

"Let Vega command the missions. He needs the practice, and you need me here."

"Fine. Send him word." Shepard turned back to Dr. Walker, who had watched the exchange blandly.

"What's the next step?"

The next step, it turned out, was paperwork. She registered herself under the name Jane Williams as a nod to her deceased friend, with only Dr. Walker in the know about her true identity and instructions for the child to be notified of her parentage when he or she was of legal age. Shepard also had to sign waivers and legal releases for herself and the child, and fill out an extensive and very complicated medical history, because how exactly did one list "death" under previous ailments and hospitalizations without coming off as crazy?

Finally though, she was led to a private room and asked to don a lumpy hospital gown and submit to being hooked up to a jungle of wires and tubes to monitor her overnight. Garrus stood at the door and watched, discomfiting everyone, but looking far too intimidating for anyone to say anything to him. He seemed mildly amused by the humans treatment of him. Shepard knew that it was ignorance and inexperience rather than xenophobia that was causing people to react so strangely to Garrus, but it still irked her a little. If they knew who he was, what he had done…they would be thanking him, not avoiding him.

At long last, she was tucked into the hospital bed for the night. She fired up her omni-tool to read reports, but she couldn't focus. Despite her insistence that Mindoir was a different world now than it had been 16 years ago, memories of her girlhood were flooding her mind, as clear as if she was 17 again, shuffling around an Alliance base and waiting until she was old enough to enlist. It was little things that sprang up and reminded her, like the greenish tint to the sky and the smell of the native grasses. They reminded her of her mother and father and sister, of her first love and her teachers and friends. She had been a normal kid until those pirates came. Had that been the first piece of the rest of her life? A life of violence and pain and death? Even her Alliance career had been more brutal than the average soldiers, what with the thresher maw incident that got her noticed by high command in the first place.

"Garrus," Shepard said. "Do you think I'm doing the right thing?"

The turian shifted from foot to foot uncomfortably, then moved over to the bed and took a seat in the padded chair beside her. He was quiet for a long moment, though he obviously had thought about this before.

"You're putting the child's safety and happiness ahead of your own wishes…so I'd say that yes, you're doing the right thing. Though I do think you should have told Kaidan about this."

Shepard scowled. "He would just complicate things."

"More so than he already did, you mean?" Garrus asked, raising a brow at her. He leaned over one knee. "I know how babies are made Shepard."

"You jealous?"

"A little bit, sure. The idea of making a person who would be a little bit of me and a little bit of you…well that'd be one hell of a thing."

"I'm never doing _this_ again," Shepard said, motioning towards her stomach. "What a nightmare."

Garrus leaned back in his chair and crossed his arms. "There are plenty of people who would kill for the chance to do what you're doing. The Krogan, for one. My sister Solana, for another. She was pregnant twice, but she lost both of them. Little girls. I could have been an uncle."

"I'm sorry for your sister, and for Eve and…God. Way to make me feel like a fucking monster Garrus."

"I'm not saying that at all Shepard. I'm just saying that this doesn't have to be all bad. I think the galaxy will be a better place with a little Shepard DNA kept in the mix."

Shepard started to laugh, but then she was crying. "This is so fucked up," She laughed through her sobs.

Garrus reached out and put an awkward hand on her shoulder. "One more thing, while I'm in honesty mode."

"Do you have any other mode?" Shepard asked bitterly, wiping the snot off of her nose with her hospital gown.

"You really should tell Kaidan what you've done. I can kind of understand not telling him before, in case he tried to stop you, but now…when it's too late for him to interfere…"

Shepard shook her head. "He'll hate me."

"Maybe at first. But he'll be glad to know rather than not. I would want to know, in his situation."

Shepard closed her eyes. "Yeah. I would too."

"You should rest, Shepard." Garrus got to his feet and went back to his post at the door. Shepard closed her eyes. After a while, she went to sleep.


	4. Chapter 3

The surgery was done.

Shepard was stone, one hand on the round lid of the mechanical womb that would carry her child to term and the other pressed against her chest, over her heart, where she could feel the pounding beat of her blood. Her eyes were glued to the monitor, where the vital stats flicked and pinged in time with the little life form in the canister. The baby's heartbeat fluttered quick and soft, working hard at growing into a person.

Shepard felt that the moment she took her hand off of the tank, she ceased to really be a mother. She had signed her rights away and the child would grow up without ever knowing her, even if she did manage to make it through the war alive. The rational, logical, unfeeling part of her was perfectly accepting of this plan; Mindoir was a semi-prosperous colony, but quite out-of-the-way enough to avoid Reaper notice for quite some time. Compared to her other options of keeping the child with her or sending it to Kaidan's family on Earth, this was the safest and most convenient thing to do. But the hormonal, emotional, feeling part of her was heartsick of the idea of never getting to know what would become of the baby.

Her baby. Kaidan's baby. She saw in her mind Kaidan smiling up at her, a little bundle in his arms. She saw herself, bending over a little girl's shoulders to show her how to line up the sights on a practice rifle. She saw a serious-faced little boy with chocolate eyes and short dark hair using biotics. She saw a young woman from Mindoir being promoted to Lieutenant—whole and unbroken, without the horrors in her past that Shepard had suffered—and herself at the back of the crowd, gray-haired and proud. Shepard closed the hand over her chest into a fist and forced those might-have-beens out of her mind. She didn't have time to imagine what life could be, because if she didn't act there wouldn't be any life in the galaxy left, much less the little one in the tank under her hand.

Slowly, Shepard dropped her hand from the tank and turned around. She took a moment to wipe the tears threatening at the corners of her eyes, straightened her shirt over the one scar that wasn't combat-related, and then took a deep breath. With each step away from the grow tank, she felt a little bit more like her old self. Distance, emotional and physical, was the only thing that would keep the child from harm.

#

A few steps back, Garrus stood quietly by, allowing Shepard to have her last moments in peace with the child. His menacing, armored presence kept the bustling techs well away from the grieving woman.

"Are you…okay Shepard?" Garrus asked, hesitating. He wasn't sure how to handle this sort of thing. He and Shepard were friends sure, comrades, squadmates, but this….this was deep stuff. This was family and history and the- future-beyond-the-war stuff.

Shepard just shook her head. She looked beaten, alone, afraid. Garrus saw a heartbreak in her eyes that he'd never seen before, and a sadness he'd only felt once, back on Omega, when he'd gotten news of his mother's passing. She didn't look like Commander Shepard, savior of the citadel, survivor. She just looked like a woman who'd let something precious slip away. Garrus didn't say anything. He knew very well that at moments like this, there were no words of comfort that wouldn't sound trite or meaningless. He was surprised when she stopped next to him and put a hand on his arm. "Thank you for your help, Garrus," Shepard said. "I couldn't have gone through with this without you."

"Of course, Shepard. I'll always be here for you." He followed the Commander out the door and hailed a cab to the shuttleport, watching her 12 and her 6 because goodness knows that even Commander Shepard can't do it herself all the time.

#

The crew was worried about the amount of time that Shepard spent in her cabin after her short jaunt down on her home colony of MIndoir, but no one pressed her for details. The few people who voiced their curiosity were quickly staunched by Garrus or Dr. Michel. The only person that this diversion didn't work on was Liara, once she pulled her head out of her Shadow Broker data feeds and noticed that Shepard hadn't been in the mess in days.

When the young asari couldn't get a straight answer out of Garrus, she took it on herself to find out what was up. And she knew that something was up. That scene in the med lab after Tuchanka had pinged an alarm for Liara, cueing her in that whatever was bothering Shepard must be medical.

With that lead, Liara searched all of the hospital records from Mindoir during the time period that the Normandy was in orbit, looking for anything that she could find that might be related to Shepard, limiting it to procedures that couldn't be performed in the Normandy's small combat med bay. There had been twelve surgeries during that time which were out of Dr. Michel's capabilities. A thorough background check on each of the names revealed that one of the patients was named Jane Williams—and no Jane Williams existed on Mindoir. That was a lead, but not proof…plus, Liara dug deeper and found out what Jane Williams had been admitted for….she was stumped. Was it even possible?

The Shadow Broker didn't have any reliable informants on Mindoir, which was frustrating. Over the course of the next few days she made one, a hospital receptionist who was eager to enter the information exchange network. She gave Liara enough information to hack the hospital security cameras, where she found what she had been looking for all along. Jane Williams was, in fact, Shepard. There was a clear shot of Shepard and Garrus in "Jane's" room, talking while Shepard was hooked up to monitors and scanners. It was conclusive. Shepard had gone down to Mindoir to put her unborn child into a grow tank.

Liara could even pull up the security feed in the room where growing fetuses floated in tanks, not yet born. She couldn't zoom in enough to verify the registration numbers on the sides of the tanks, but as she was looking at them, she was aware that one of those unborn babies was the child of the commander.

It didn't take much for Liara to put the story together. The Commander's romance with Major Kaidan Alenko wasn't a secret, and with everything that Shepard had been through since being brought back by Cerberus, it wasn't even that hard of a leap to figure that she had missed a contraceptive shot or two. Liara stared at the video feed, tears welling in her eyes for her friend, and for the helpless little life, growing in a tank on a shelf.

The child might be helpless, but it was not beyond help. Liara fired up her information network again, planting seeds that would hopefully lead to a more thorough network of informants on Mindoir. Now that she knew what she knew, the small boring colony had jumped up in its importance. Liara couldn't take in a child herself or even bring herself to confront Commander Shepard about what she'd learned, but she could make sure that everything was done to ensure the child's safety and wellbeing. Trust funds were taken out in the child's name, suitable adoptive families on the colony were subtly alerted, and feelers were put out to ensure that Mindoir would come out ahead of the other colonies in the area.

It was the least that Liara could do. She wouldn't presume to tell Shepard that she knew about her secret, especially with how much trouble Shepard had gone through to keep it on the down low. When Liara lay in bed that night trying to sleep she struggled, not for the first time, with separating herself and her relationships from her role as the Shadow Broker. She knew more about the people she knew that they did sometimes. Maybe it was wrong, but Liara couldn't do it any other way. It wasn't in her.


	5. Chapter 4

_Five Months Later_

Shepard could feel her life dribbling away between the fingers that barely held herself together. The AI's projection of the little boy she had failed to save on Earth faded into sparkles, leaving her with the Crucible and a choice. She knew what she was going to do even before the boy finished telling her the options. She came up here to destroy the fucking reapers and by God and the galaxy, that was what she was going to do. If it meant she was going to die, so be it.

Each step was pain beyond pain. Death would be a relief, after this. In death, maybe, finally, she could find peace. She would die the same death as Anderson, and Ashley, and Mordin, and eventually everyone else she knew and loved. She was a soldier; this was a soldier's death.

Her mind found Kaidan's face and she smiled, the pistol in her hand trembling. She imagined him, after the war, visiting Mindoir and greeting their son or daughter with a smile and a hug, in a universe finally free of Reapers. She imagined that he'd retire from being a Spectre in order to be a father, and they would live on Mindoir together to live the life that was taken from Shepard when she was 16 years old.

But she hadn't told him about the child. It would be born about now, Shepard thought suddenly. Her mental picture changed to Dr. Walker pulling a writhing little pink thing from the grow tank and handing it to a waiting couple, young and exuberant, building their family and their life on Mindoir. Strangers to fear and grief and violence and war, the opposite of everything that Shepard felt that she embodied.

Shepard was at the energy output portion of the crucible. She raised her gun. She could hardly see straight, but in her mind, for that last moment, she and Kaidan were on Mindoir together, with their baby, in a cozy little prefab farm like the one she had grown up on, and they were all laughing.

#

Garrus knew, on the bridge of the Normandy, when he saw the explosion on the citadel and the reapers begin to fall, that Shepard was dead. He turned his back from the feeds and closed his eyes, trying to breathe, his relief that she had succeeded fighting with the heartache of knowing that she had done as she promised and sacrificed herself.

He volunteered to be on the salvage team. He was there when they found her body, charred and broken and bloody. Shepard had given everything, in the end.

Everyone who had served on the Normandy was flooded with commendations and, of course, more duties. The rebuilding of a war-torn galaxy was no minor undertaking. But there was one thing that Garrus had to do before anything else.

He found Kaidan in a hospital. The Alliance ship that he had been serving on had been hit bad by the reapers trying to keep hostiles away from London so that Anderson and his team could make the final push towards the beam. It wasn't pretty. If Kaidan had looked bad after Mars, that was nothing to how he looked now. His eyes stared straight ahead, and the flickering of the monitors read, even to Garrus's untrained eye, that the human's time was limited.

"Alenko," Garrus shifted himself into a seat next to Kaidan's bed. "I guess you heard about Shepard."

Kaidan didn't answer. Garrus didn't know if the man was able. "She destroyed the Reapers, just like she said she would. I wish that it hadn't…" he broke off and cleared his throat. There was no need to vocalize what everyone who knew and loved Shepard was thinking. They all wished that she could have saved the galaxy, again, without having to die for it.

"Yy…err…you…herr." Kaidan's voice sounded choked, as if his windpipe had been partially crushed by whatever had injured him. His hand trembled on the side of the bed.

"Shepard gave me one last mission before we went to Earth." Garrus stood up and paced to the door, then back again. He had thought over this moment a thousand times, but now that he was here, having to say it, his mind was blanking on him. "When we went down to Tuchanka, Shepard was injured, and in the medical scan afterwards, Dr. Michel found that Shepard was pregnant with your child."

Garrus couldn't tell if the gurgling sound from Kaidan was happiness or despair. "We immediately went to Mindoir, where she transferred the child to a grow-tank and left it to be adopted out to a colonist couple."

There were tears streaming from Kaidan's eyes, and he shook with sobs.

"Gr… er…by?"Kaidan choked out.

Garrus shook his head. "I don't know. Shepard…didn't say. She just asked me to tell you, after the war, if she didn't make it through." Garrus had all kinds of conjectures about what and why and how Shepard had made her decisions, but it wasn't really his place to push those theories onto Kaidan. Surely Kaidan knew Shepard well enough to figure it out for himself.

"Mm gon…get…bttr. Gon…see er."

Kaidan closed his eyes and turned his head slightly away from Garrus.

"Thnk…u…grrs."

"If you need anything…" Garrus offered weakly before fleeing.


	6. Chapter 5

_One Year Later_

A green light lit up on one of Liara's terminals, the personal one reserved for those she considered friends or family. She paused in her ciphering of supply chains and requisitions to check it.

"Kaidan," Liara was pleased to hear from her old friend. She didn't see much of anyone from the old Normandy crew anymore. She knew, from her data feeds, that he was recovering from his injuries more quickly than anyone had predicted. She also knew, from a brief message from Garrus, that Kaidan was aware of the existence of his and Shepard's child.

"How are you?" Liara's voice was warm, her smile genuine. Kaidan, on the vid, looked tired but hopeful. There was a maturity about him that Liara hadn't seen before, and a hollowness in his eyes that made him look much older.

"I've been better. I was wondering if you…knew anything about a child. Shepard's child."

"I do."

"Did she tell you about it?" He sounded momentarily exasperated.

"No, Kaidan. I figured it out on my own. Information is my specialty, after all."

"Right." He looked relieved. "Garrus said…that I'm the father. Is that true?"

"Confirmed. The child is on Mindoir, per Shepard's wishes, living with adoptive parents Anne and Thomas Fielding."

"Oh." Kaidan was quiet for a moment, digesting that information. "Can you tell me…about the child?"

"Certainly Kaidan. She was born on the eve of the day that ended the war, and her parents named her Mia Shepard Fielding—after Anne's mother and the hero of the galaxy, of course. They do not know who her biological parents are. I can send you a picture, if you like."

"I would like that. If you could keep me informed, that would be great."

"Of course. Garrus already asked me to inform him if Mia or her family needed anything, and I have been keeping a special eye on Mindor. The colony was hardly touched by the war and is thriving currently."

"Thank you Liara." Kaidan said. His eyes looked softer, more peaceful than at the beginning of the conversation.

"Do you plan to visit?" Liara asked as gently as possible. She had thought of visiting the girl herself, but she didn't want to incite alarm in the parents with a sudden appearance.

"Not any time soon." Kaidan sighed. "I want to, you have no idea how often I've thought of going down there…" he trailed off into some private fantasy, but then shook his head firmly and frowned. "But I think Shepard knew what she was doing when she did what she did. Mia…" he tasted the name, startled that the mysterious child was suddenly a person, "is better off growing up with a normal life."

"She will be allowed to know her parentage when she is 18 years old if she chooses to do so, per the Systems Alliance regulations. There is a chance that you will get to meet her yet, Kaidan. She may even seek you out." The sealed files were currently fake, in case anyone tried to hack into them. Liara planned to correct them in due time, however.

"I would like that, I think. In the meantime…" He visibly pulled himself away from thoughts of Mia and Shepard. "Thank you Liara. For everything that you've done. And Garrus too. I might not have pulled through back there…until I had something to live for."

"There is always something to live for Kaidan. Shepard is gone…and owe it to her to make a galaxy where her daughter can live happily."

"Of course Liara, we'll talk again soon."

Kaidan cut the com and Liara sunk into a chair, mentally exhausted by the short exchange. She looked over at the terminals blinking and beeping at her. She wasn't motivated to work at all. Instead, she instructed Glyph to handle the organizing and analyzing and hold all decisions until morning. She needed an evening off, and maybe even a stiff drink as well.

#

Down on Mindoir, unaware of the conversation happening thousands of light-years away , Anne and Thomas Fielding were walking on either side of a wobbly one-year old girl, one of her small pale hands in each of theirs, her steps barely more than a toddle. The sun was setting idyllically over the browning fields, and native fauna called out a strange, lulling melody. The girl saw something she liked and stopped, pulling her hands away from her parents and clapping them together, her bright eyes lighting up in time with her giggles.

"We are the luckiest people in the galaxy," Thomas said, swooping down to pick up the little girl. He couldn't help but grin when she pulled at his beard with her little hands.

Anne watched lovingly, her heart full. "I know that the war was terrible, but I can't help but be grateful that it brought Mia to us. Life without her would be..." She shook her head, not wanting to remember the years of heartache during which she and Thomas had lost pregnancy after pregnancy in their attempts to start a family.

"Do you think her parents miss her?" Thomas asked, glancing skyward for a moment even as he wrestled the giggling toddler.

"I don't know. If they knew her, I'm sure that they would. But with what the Hospital Director told us about her files being sealed..."

"Yeah, that worried me."

"I just hope that her genetic parents don't cause any trouble for her, or for us later."

Thomas passed the girl back to Anne, who wrapped her arms around the child. Mia laid her head down on Anne's shoulder and put her thumb in her mouth. Her leg kicked absently in the air.

"We don't have to worry about that for seventeen years, thank goodness." Thomas said practically. "We just have to enjoy the time we have with her. She's going to be who she's going to be."

"I know." Anne said. She closed her eyes and stroked her baby's hair with her fingertips. Thomas put his arm around his wife and daughter, and together they went back inside their home to live their lives, a family.

THE END


End file.
